ion, in which the latter, after touching
upon certain cases in which he believed the President would be justified
in using force to sustain the Federal Laws, supposed the case of a State
where all the Federal Officers had resigned and where there were neither
Federal Courts to issue, nor officers to execute judicial process, and
continued: "In that event, troops would certainly be out of place, and
their use wholly illegal. If they are sent to aid the Courts and
Marshals there must be Courts and Marshals to be aided. Without the
exercise of these functions, which belong exclusively to the civil
service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no matter what may be
the physical strength which the Government has at its command. Under
such circumstances, to send a military force into any State, with orders
to act against the people, would be simply making War upon them."

Resting upon that opinion of Attorney-General Black, President Buchanan,
in his Message, after referring to the solemn oath taken by the
Executive "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and
stating that there were now no longer any Federal Officers in South
Carolina, through whose agency he could keep that oath, took up the laws
of February 28, 1795, and March 3, 1807, as "the only Acts of Congress
on the Statute-book bearing upon the subject," which "authorize the
President, after he shall have ascertained that the Marshal, with his
posse comitatus, is unable to execute civil or criminal process in any
particular case, to call out the Militia and employ the Army and Navy to
aid him in performing this service, having first, by Proclamation,
commanded the insurgents to 'disperse and retire peaceably to their
respective abodes, within a limited time'"--and thereupon held that
"This duty cannot, by possibility, be performed in a State where no
judicial authority exists to issue process, and where there is no
Marshal to execute it; and where even if there were such an officer, the
entire population would constitute one solid combination to resist him."
And, not satisfied with attempting to show as clearly as he seemed to
know how, his own inability under the laws to stamp out Treason, he
proceeded to consider what he thought Congress also could not do under
the Constitution. Said he: "The question fairly stated, is: Has the
Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce into submission a
State which is attempting to withdraw, or has